I’ve decided to provide a critical analysis of an article titled “Conservatives will not stop pushing the ‘Pence rule’ as a solution to sexual harassment”. If you want to, you can read the article for yourself. This article mainly picks at the parts that I most feel like arguing against. The article may be a few months old, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still critique it.

For one thing, the title of the article is missing the last word, which, if inserted, would make it closer to correct. If the word “claims” were added to the end, it would come far closer to the heart of the matter.

The author Casey Quinlan opens her article with the following frilly statement:

As stories of powerful men masturbating in front of women, forcibly kissing and groping women, and forcing teenage girls’ heads into their crotch have gained national attention, it’s sparked widespread conversation about how to prevent sexual harassment and assault.

This opening paragraph is almost graphic enough to be a porno. It’s obvious that she’s trying to invoke some pretty strong feelings here. And what better way to spark productive conversation than to drive your audience into an emotional frenzy?

The solution seems obvious: The best way to prevent sexual harassment and sexual assault of women and girls is for men not to sexually harass and assault women and girls.

Because we’re not naive, we all know that telling someone not to do something is no guarantee that they won’t do it. After all, telling someone not to murder isn’t stopping murders from occurring. Therefore, the best we can do is criminalize the undesirable behavior and enforce the law when someone steps out of line.

And I do have some good news for you from the current year! Sexual harassment is already illegal! That means that all we need to do is enforce the law when we determine it may have been broken, and mete out punishments when (and only when) a court of law has determined guilt. Yay, progress!

But wait, there’s more. I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Laws against sexual harassment were written, passed, and enforced primarily by men. If there really were some patriarchy that was out to get women (as many feminists claim), this would not have occurred. Looks like men aren’t your enemies, after all.

But conservatives appear to be less interested in finding ways to teach men how to co-exist with women, who comprise 47 percent of the U.S. labor force, than discussing how best to avoid women altogether.

In particular, conservative writers are increasingly focused on the “Mike Pence rule,” pointing out that Vice President Mike Pence does not eat dinner alone with women who are not his wife and does not go to events where alcohol is being served when his wife is not present. Pence first revealed this detail in a Washington Post article published in March.

Now, this is the heart of the matter right here: That men are starting to avoid women like Casey Quinlan, and they feel as though they are being punished. Not only that, more men are adopting the Mike Pence rule, which was obviously designed so that there’d be a witness in the event that yet another obvious false accusation arises, the likes of which we’ve been seeing on the news on a near-daily basis.

In a sense, the Mike Pence rule is a lot like the “stranger danger” that many of us were taught about as children. It’s a terrible thing to teach a child in any case, as it conditions children to distrust people they don’t know, they’ll lose the desire to meet new people, and their interpersonal skills suffer in the long run. And the type of people it was intended to protect them from are actually very rare. Yet, like “stranger danger”, the Mike Pence rule came to be because there are some messed up people out there.

A slander culture has developed that was intended to snipe the careers of men who were successful, so it stands to reason that men, particularly the more successful ones, take measures for their own protection. It’s an unfortunate side effect of the Pence rule that women sometimes feel that they’re being regarded with suspicion, but it’s amusing to see a left-wing writer complain that this is the case, considering that she’s done her fair share to manufacture the conditions of her own plight.

Casey, on the topic of a piece by writer David French, writes:

French argues that people are sometimes attracted to each other in professional settings, regardless of their marital status. He doesn’t explain why those people, regardless of their gender or marital status, can’t be expected to exercise judgement.

It’s not really surprising that Casey would (mis)use David’s article to prop up the idea that men can’t be bothered to exercise self control, but she brings up the main point in the next paragraph, even if with only a dismissive attitude. It’s as though she doesn’t want to admit what the problem really is.

French goes on to write that abiding by such a rule “protects both sides from” reputational harm, suggesting that high-profile men must always worry about women lying about them.

Do you suppose that perhaps these men’s concerns may be justified? After all, there have been copious allegations of sexual harassment against high-profile men in the last year. Just within the last month, Stormy Daniels and Michael Wolff were both found to have lied about claims of infidelity against president Donald Trump.

It’s as though we were in the middle of a false accusation epidemic.

Of course, it also doesn’t help to train people to be oversensitive to dating requests or mere pick-up lines. I suspect that Casey Quinlan would think it sexual harassment to be called “gorgeous”, though she doesn’t have to worry about very many men directing that at her.

As part of a 2016 survey, women told Harvard Business Review they were worried about retaliation from their harasser or the organization they work for if they reported. Women have a lot of reasons to ignore or downplay harassment, whether it happens to them or someone else because it seen as the price women have to pay for excelling in a male-dominated workplace, according to HBR.

I’m including this in my criticism because this is the worst citation I’ve seen in my life. The page she links to isn’t a study, it’s an article from Harvard Business Review, and it will be one of three article views you’re permitted on that site before having to sign up to read more. The article she referenced didn’t call harassment “the price women have to pay for excelling in a male-dominated workplace”, they called it “a cost to being attractive”. Apparently, Casey Quinlan doesn’t respect her own sources enough to avoid distorting what they’re saying.

The paragraph she referenced contained two links. One of which lead to a Huffington Post article. Did Huffington Post perform the study? No, they were merely discussing a study performed by Cosmopolitan. Yes, the same Cosmopolitan that sometimes takes a break from talking about sex to discuss celebrity gossip. So I followed the link that Huffington Post provided, and finally found the “study”. Except it wasn’t a study, it was an infographic. No information about methodology such as sample selection, variable consideration, or error control. Just a bunch of numbers on a chart which, for all we know, someone could have just made up.

The second link led to a study (yes, an actual study), but to view the study, you have to make an account or at least purchase short-term access. How unreasonable is it to assume that a college student has tons of money to throw around for citations for their research papers? If they’d have the $25 just to view this study, they’d probably put that money towards a month’s supply of ramen.

How is it that Casey Quinlan became a professional writer? When I did research papers in college, if I didn’t properly cite my sources, the professors would have given me a failing grade. They certainly wouldn’t have accepted me making them follow a maze that would maybe lead them to something of value.

If you’re going to cite a study, LINK TO THE STUDY ITSELF.

In any case, if a victim were concerned with the consequences of coming forward with a sexual harassment complaint, why does it seem easier for them to come to the spotlight of information media, rather than the anonymity of law enforcement? It’s law enforcement that would launch an investigation to determine guilt for the crime that had allegedly taken place. What would be the problem with that?

But French is not alone in his focus on the “Pence rule” in the midst of sexual harassment allegations. In October, former deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, Sebastian Gorka, tweeted the alleged instances of sexual assault and harassment that dozens of women say Harvey Weinstein committed could have been avoided if Weinstein simply didn’t meet with women one-on-one at all — referring to Pence’s rule.

From this point, Casey provides several examples of the Pence rule being taken too far. As she was cherry-picking, her ability to detect sarcasm was turned off.

The subtle suggestion that Sebastian made was that those women were making things up, and if there were witnesses, they’d have had a much harder time getting away with it.

Stating the obvious in an ironic fashion. Of course, you’d have to tell an SJW that John was using his sense of humor. After all, SJWs selectively take things at face value.

It’s over-the-top and obvious why it’s not a practical solution. That’s an ample hint that Timothy was being sarcastic. Most of you could see that. Casey Quinlan did not.

Not only is it absurd, but it is also deeply harmful to the careers of women in the workplace. When men avoid women for fear of looking “improper” or for fear that they can’t control themselves, they deprive women of opportunities to gain sponsors in their careers and to build better working relationships with colleagues and supervisors.

Casey made it to the end of her article and still didn’t figure out that the Pence rule was crafted in response to something. Until she figures out what, she’s not likely to understand that the whole slander culture that she’s working so hard to enable is backfiring in a big way.

When you start making things up about people, don’t be surprised when they act in their own defense. Also, consider the possibility that things might end up with you not getting what you want. In any game of strategy, your opponent gets to make moves, too.

Anyhow, let’s not be too hard on writer Casey Quinlan. After all, if you offer most writers enough money, they’ll write just about anything.

Michael Wolff, the author of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House was a guest on the Australian morning program The Today Show. However, he walked off the set during a live interview after he was asked a question about Donald Trump.

The question concerned whether Wolff was sure that Trump was having an affair behind the back of his wife while Trump is president of the United States. Here is the question, as asked by interviewer Ben Fordham:

“You said during a TV interview just last month that you are ‘absolutely sure’ that Donald Trump is currently having an affair while president behind the back of the first lady, and I repeat you said you were ‘absolutely sure.’

“Just last week however you backflipped and said I quote ‘I do not know if the president is having an affair.’ Do you owe the president and the first lady an apology, Mr. Wolff?”

It was a valid question. After all, being “absolutely sure” of something and to “not know” about it are two very different things. An irreconcilable contradiction is a sign that something is wrong.

Michael Wolff was put in a very tight spot, with the only means to save face being to find a way out. He hatched a plan: he pretended that the audio equipment was not working. Maybe if he did that, the interviewer would become discouraged, and move on to a question that Wolff was more comfortable with answering.

Too bad his plan didn’t work, as Ben just repeated the question. Running out of options to evade it, Wolff insisted that he still didn’t hear the question, then walked off the set. Afterwards, The Today Show confirmed that the audio equipment was indeed working. When asked to explain his own words, Wolff turned chicken and backed down.

The hard part about lying is remembering what you said.

So, why did Michael Wolff turn from his claim that he was “absolutely sure” that Trump was having an affair? He specified the other party as being Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations. However, Haley evidently didn’t like Wolff making up things about her behind her back, and she sharply denied Wolff’s statement.

When you go around making up lies about people, you end up making enemies. Who’d have thunk it?

Slander culture has been dealt another vicious blow, and they set themselves up for it. Perhaps soon, they’ll figure out that their approach doesn’t result in substantial gains in the long run. But I suspect that they’ll have to be shown quite a few more examples of their approach backfiring before they finally get it.

Naked statues were censored in Assassin’s Creed Origins. It’s not as big a deal as it sounds, considering that what’s censored is a special educational mode that could likely be used in schools.

Just that in itself is mind-blowing: that Assassin’s Creed could be used to teach students about history. Not that Assassin’s Creed was the first game to try.

Remember this one?

While it’s true that the act of censoring the statues seems unnecessary, there are people who are in so big a hurry to decry anything that they see as censorship that they don’t take a little time to look into the story to know what’s really going on. There are some who are making this out to be about Ubisoft caving in to pressure to avoid an AO (adults only) rating, even though the original game received no such rating.

The decision did have to do with ratings, but the ratings would have been for the stand-alone educational mode. The ratings issue had no bearing on the original version of the game, for which the educational mode would just be an optional extension that the player doesn’t even need to download or use. Ubisoft was merely acting to ensure that the mode, when sold as a stand-alone, would be accessible for a wider audience, considering that it may be used in schools.

It’s kind of ironic that a game about ancient Egypt is being praised for its historical accuracy when the game makers insist on removing the nudity, even from the statues. For one thing, the statues in ancient Egypt were likely painted. We know that this was the case in Greece, but the paint peeled off, which is why they look the way they do today. Also, public nudity was very common in ancient Egypt. In fact, persons were not even permitted to wear clothing until the age of 15. Even Pharaoh’s own children were not exempt from this rule. Imagine how well it would have gone over if Ubisoft had gone for historical accuracy in this regard. Also, imagine the money Egyptians saved on back-to-school shopping.

In spite of this, ancient Egypt was actually among the most moral societies in the ancient world. They get a bad rap today because, at one point, the Pharaoh refused to free some slaves that he should have.

Also, contrary to popular belief, ancient Egypt wasn’t the sandy wasteland that it is today. Egypt was actually fertile, particularly closer to the Nile. In spite of this, the Egypt of Assassin’s Creed Origins was sandy and gritty pretty much all over the place, which would lead one to question just how a civilization thousands of years old could thrive so long with such limited potential for agriculture.

So while you might get a nice history lesson from Assassin’s Creed Origins’ guided tour mode, don’t count on it to be entirely historically accurate. Even putting aside the gratuitous seashells.

The symbol above is called a radical, also known as a “square root”. In mathematics, it along with the radicand represents a number which, when multiplied by itself, gives a product equal to the radicand, the radicand being the number within the radical.

The guy is pretty far from the only one who liked to have some fun with math by making things out to be something else. One example that I think we’re probably all familiar with is what we get when we punch the quantity “80085” into our calculators. Alternatively, one can instead punch in “58008” and look at it upside-down.

A lesser known example is the female appearance of the number one, especially when it’s stylized and placed in parentheses:

Hot stuff.

Or this popular example, which takes a little calculus:

This next one is popular among the more metal mathematicians:

Being immature with math and numbers really isn’t anything new, but this would be the first time I’ve heard of someone getting in trouble for it, with even the police getting involved.

This story is being passed around as an example of how people are becoming overly sensitive, particularly as relates to the causes of various left-wing fringe groups. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine anyone calling the cops over a math symbol.

While most media outlets reporting on this story say that the student’s home was searched, there is a variant of this story going around which states that the student’s home wasn’t searched. It’s not a bad idea to have at least two or three sources of information on news stories, especially if at least one of those sources has an apparent political bias. Though avoiding political bias in the news is nearly impossible, a different perspective can help when otherwise, there’d be another aspect to a story you might have missed.

A student got in trouble over a math symbol. That Was Actually The News.

A YouTube personality named Mari Lopez made the claim to have been cured of her breast cancer, and said that she owed her recovery to her vegan lifestyle.

You could imagine that vegans would jump all over this, considering that they trip over themselves in the rush for any evidence that their hokey diet makes them superior to the general population, with mainstream media outlets enabling them by publishing anything attention-grabbing that doesn’t go against their own narrative. Mari also claimed that her diet cured her homosexuality, but media outlets don’t seem to have much to say as far as that goes.

In a stunning turn of events, Mari’s breast cancer had returned. To Mari’s credit, she did seem to figure something out, because she started eating meat again after her cancer returned. Obviously, her vegan diet wasn’t really doing anything for her, and she might have benefited from the iodine and B vitamins that she would have been missing out on as a result of veganism. Sadly, Mari Lopez didn’t make it.

The show’s co-host, Liz Johnson, was quick enough to throw Mari under the bus. Johnson blamed Mari’s death on her becoming inconsistent with her diet and spiritual life. Also to the fact that she underwent radiation and chemotherapy, which have been helping people to battle and survive cancer for years.

As you’ve probably pieced together by now, their channel was one that peddled all-natural remedies.

Liz also opposed Mari using a microwave to prepare her food, which was something that Liz was against. The idea that microwaves do any more damage to a food’s nutritional value than traditional cooking or somehow makes food worse to consume is another idea that gullible people buy into, but it’s not as virulent a brand of nonsense as veganism, because it doesn’t eliminate necessary nutrients and an entire food group from one’s diet. But it’s still something to watch out for when you want evidence that someone is terrible at thinking for themselves.

While natural remedy sites thrive on the business that they get from morons, there’s more to it than that. I suspect that these sites are so popular because people don’t want to visit doctors. With how expensive a visit to the doctor can get, it’s easy to understand their reluctance. There are people out there that wouldn’t go to the ER with an emergency, as doing so can easily cost a person as much as a year’s wages, and the prospect of making repeated calls to an insurance company to beg them to honor their commitment is more than a little daunting. And through it all, the stress might have an even further negative impact on their health. Then, suddenly, that sewing kit starts to look mighty attractive.

People become so desperate for an alternative that they begin accepting any that is presented to them, including the vegan diet, which is among the most persistent of fad diets. As veganism is criticized, vegans double down on their stance, and they attribute every health benefit that they can imagine to the diet in an attempt to justify it.

Considering this, is it any surprise that there are vegans that actually believe that their diet can cure cancer? And as the recent death of Mari Lopez has demonstrated, it’s not a harmless misconception.

The question at this point is, how many more lives need to be devastated by the widespread misconception that veganism is a healthy lifestyle? And why aren’t more people doing something about it?

The Art of Manliness did a piece on how you can make an authentic Philly cheesesteak at home. Being from Pennsylvania, I know that there will be some who take issue with this article. Mainly, with the very idea that an authentic Philly cheesesteak would be something that a person could make at home.

According to Pennsylvanians, the authentic Philly cheesesteak is something that a person can only find in Philadelphia. If the sandwich was assembled anywhere else, it’s not an authentic Philly cheesesteak.

It might seem petty to say that a sandwich is not authentic for having been made in a different location, even though it’s assembled with the same ingredients in exactly the same way, and that’s because it is. To understand this pettiness, one needs to understand the mystique surrounding the Philly cheesesteak.

To Pennsylvanians, there is no such thing as a bad Philly cheesesteak, and they hold the Philly cheesesteak as beyond reproach. If you don’t like the Philly cheesesteak sandwich, then it’s because you didn’t have an authentic one. As already mentioned, authentic Philly cheesesteaks are only made in Philadelphia. If you had one there, and still didn’t like it, then you went to the wrong place.

This provides ample opportunity for the Philly cheesesteak to escape criticism, because there are a number of restaurants in Philadelphia that claim to offer the authentic Philly cheesesteak, and in each case, there is dispute surrounding their claim of authenticity. So, you can’t criticize the sandwich unless you’ve had one from every possible establishment in town, otherwise, there’s at least one place for the fanboys to retreat to to defend their beloved sandwich.

For one thing, I don’t want to have to eat a couple dozen cheesesteak sandwiches before I decide I don’t like them. One should suffice. The fans can instead explain to me just what it is that each of these restaurants do that’s any different from one another, and explain just how that impacts the quality of the sandwich.

But what if you were to lose your mind and decide to go eat at every cheesesteak joint in Philadelphia? Upon completion of this task, do you finally have the right to criticize this sandwich?

Not quite.

There are different ways to order your cheesesteak. Not only that, you’re expected to order it with a proprietary cheesesteak lingo. For example, if you want a cheesesteak with onions, you’d say,

“Wiz wit”

And then you’d feel like a moron, because it’s impossible to talk like that without sounding like one. Decoded, what this means is “with Cheeze Whiz, with onions”.

And no, I’m not kidding. The Philly cheesesteak is made with Cheez Whiz. While you’re mulling over just what tragedy of thinking resulted in a major American city accepting a sandwich made with Cheez Whiz as its representative sandwich, here is the Cheez Whiz ingredients list:

I thought it was illegal to call something “cheese” unless it actually contained cheese, but to Kraft’s credit, they don’t technically do that. They call it “cheez”, which may sound identical, but is spelled differently enough to get around the law and still trick poor people.

Another way to sound like a moron while ordering a sandwich is to say:

“Wiz wit-out”

Which might have made your ears perk up a little, because even though it still sounds like toddler speak, it sounds as though there’s a variant without Cheez Whiz, and a sandwich made with steak and onions sounds pretty decent. The catch is, the “wit-out” part is referring to the onions, so you’d be ordering a steak and Cheez Whiz sandwich.

You can order the sandwich with provolone instead, but the catch is, you’re still going to come across those who will say that it’s not an “authentic” Philly cheesesteak unless the topping used is Cheez Whiz. And they might be right. The most famous cheesesteak stands in Philadelphia order huge containers of Cheez Whiz to slather all over their sandwiches.

The celebrated sandwich of Philadelphia, which you supposedly could not have had unless you made the long journey to that same city, is made with Cheez Whiz. This makes the Philly cheesesteak a paradox sandwich: even if it’s authentic, it’s still not authentic.

If you go to all this effort to have an authentic Philly cheesesteak for yourself, you finally get to say you don’t like it, right? Nope. Even if you’ve consumed every permutation of the set of cheesesteak in the city of Philadelphia and you still say you don’t like it, Pennsylvanians still insist that there is no problem with the Philly cheesesteak. Instead, they’ll say that the problem is with you.

And they’d probably be right. After all, you’d have had hundreds of Philly cheesesteaks just to say you don’t like them.

Don’t play their game. If a Philly cheesesteak fanboy starts going on about how their cheesesteak is great, have them tell you where you have to go to get the right sandwich. If another fanboy is in earshot, they’ll likely disagree about the choice of cheesesteak joint. You’d be surprised how likely this is, because even though not everyone has been to Philadelphia, you’ll find people who consider themselves experts on the Philly cheesesteak everywhere. These experts argue with each other at the drop of a hat, so they’ll be distracted with each other while you make your getaway!

If that doesn’t work, ask him how a Philly cheesesteak is made. You can have fun with this by seeing just how long it takes for the guy to admit that his sandwich of choice is made with an imitation cheese product. In some cases, they’ll know what you’re getting at, so they’ll try to avoid it for as long as it takes before you drop the fact-bomb yourself. Then you’ll have humiliated his favorite sandwich, and him.

Then you can tell him that you can make the exact same sandwich at home. You just choose not to.